


Warm Cookies for a Tough Day

by MetamorphicRocky



Series: Dadspeed [2]
Category: Final Space (Cartoon)
Genre: DADSPEED GANG HOW WE FEELIN TONIGHT, Dadspeed, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, John is just kinda mentioned, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, UGH I AM LITERALLY STILL SO HAPPY, spoilers for s2ep10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 07:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20422202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetamorphicRocky/pseuds/MetamorphicRocky
Summary: SPOILERSAfter getting Little Cato back and officially adopting him, Gary thinks that it's about time that the kid gets a nice break for once. And what's better than baking cookies?





	Warm Cookies for a Tough Day

Gary walks back onto the Crimson Light, Little Cato attached to his hip. Emotions inside him are swirling around rapidly, and he isn't really sure what he's feeling right now except relieved. Relieved that Little Cato was willing to let him be his dad and come back with them.

Gary can tell that the kid is probably conflicted about everything, too. He keeps on wavering between absolutely elated to worried, and Gary knows that the kid is waiting to be reprimanded. Which is his job now, sorta. Well, it's not like he's getting paid to care for the kid, and it would be messed up if he was but—

Okay, that's not what he needs to be thinking about right now. Little Cato. His official son.

Who is slowly trying to sneak away from Gary to who knows where on the ship to probably stew in his feelings. Gary is not going to let that happen, he's prepared for parenthood now.

"Little Cato, where do you think you're going?" Gary asks, crossing his arms in a way that he hopes makes him look more serious. 

The kid stops dead in his tracks and turns around. "My room?"

Gary nods. "Well, your room is the opposite direction of where you're heading right now."

Little Cato's ears flop over in defeat, and the kid walks back over to Gary with a sigh. There's clearly guilt still swirling around in the kid, but Gary doesn't think directly talking to him about it right now would be a good idea. The kid is still way too flighty, plus Gary does not want to have to run after him again.

"You wanna do something fun?"

Little Cato glances up at Gary. "Like what?" he says.

Shit, Gary didn't think that far ahead. Think think think, what do dads do?

"How about we bake some cookies?" he says out of nowhere. Little Cato perks up at that, so Gary runs with it and quickly grabs the boy's shoulders to steer him to the kitchen. "Okay, we're baking cookies now."

They arrive at the kitchen, and Gary immediately starts pulling things down from the shelves that he knows for sure goes in cookies. He doesn't know where anything is, but he finds it all surprisingly quickly. Little Cato has just been sitting on the counter, watching Gary move about with intense purpose. 

"Is chocolate chip good?"

Little Cato nods. "You actually know how to bake?"

He laughs. "Sorta. I haven't done it in years, but I probably still remember? Wanna find a recipe for me?"

Gary tosses his phone into the kid's waiting hands, and he double checks to make sure he has everything as the boy finds a recipe.

"Does this one look good?" Little Cato asks, showing it to Gary.

Gary skims it over and nods. "Yep, that should be good. You wanna get started with measuring everything out?"

He nods and starts with the flour as Gary takes off his jacket, only for Gary to turn around to see Little Cato about to pour in a massive cup full of flour. 

"Woah woah woah, nope, that is way too much," Gary says frantically as he grabs Little Cato's wrist, pulling it towards them and away from the bowl. He takes the cup from him and grabs a knife. "Here, what you've gotta do is take the flat end of the knife to level it off to make it exact. You try."

Gary hands it back to the boy with the knife, watching as Little Cato cleanly swipes all of the excess flour back into its container. 

"Ooohhh," Little Cato says, smiling slightly. "That makes more sense. How are you so good at this?"

Gary cracks an egg. "My dad and I used to do this. The first time was a trainwreck. I can't even remember why I was upset, but cookies always calmed me down for some reason. We didn't have any, so my dad tried to make some."

"Were they good?" Little Cato asks.

Gary laughs heartily, remembering the bland yet bitter taste of the cookies and the soggy, sad shape they came out to be. "They were the worst cookies I've ever had, but it was so much fun. Then it just became a thing we did, whenever one of us was upset."

Gary can clearly remember his dad coming home from work one day, miserable beyond belief. He just fell into the couch and covered his face with his hands. Gary had to have been about six at the time, but he just ran into the kitchen, grabbed an apron, and launched it at his dad's face while screaming, "Stop being sad!" It's his favorite cookie memory. They had a flour fight in the middle of it, and it was when they finally perfected the recipe. 

Little Cato laughs, finishing up with his portion of the measuring. "Your dad sounds cool."

"The coolest." Gary smiles sadly, but he quickly covers it up with excitement. "Well, time to mix it all up! Would you care to do the honors?"

"Why, I would be honored, my good sir," Little Cato says, trying not to laugh.

And so, Little Cato ceremoniously lifts up the mixing spoon, and then begins beating the hell out of the cookie dough.

Gary bursts out laughing at the intensity of it all, the seriousness on Little Cato's face as he stirs the dough way too hard, and it almost pains Gary to have to stop the boy from ruining the cookies. He slowly pulls Little Cato's arms out of the bowl, laughing the whole time.

"What?" Little Cato says, a lopsided grin on his face as his confusion over Gary's laughter grows.

"You–you gotta be way more gentle when stirring that dough or you'll ruin it, buddy." Gary tries to calm down from his laughing fit as he wraps his hands around Little Cato's, stirring the contents of the bowl much slower than the kid had been doing previously. "Just like this, okay?"

"Ohhh, got it."

Little Cato takes over the stirring now that he knows how to do it properly, and Gary moves his hands to rest on his shoulders. Something about this moment, simply watching the young Ventrexian stir cookie dough with his tongue sticking out, feels right. It's so domestic, and Gary never thought that this would be something he would have in his life.

Little Cato finishes up, and together they lay out cookies on the pans. 

"Can we make a super big one?" Little Cato asks, already forming the giant ball needed for it.

Gary couldn't possibly say no to that request, so he nods and watches fondly as the kid slaps a giant ball of dough onto the pan. "Want that one to go in the first baking batch?"

The kid nods excitedly, quickly shoving the giant cookie into the oven with a couple pans with normal-sized cookies, and then the task is done. Now all they can do is wait.

Little Cato and Gary both hop up to sit on the table that isn't covered in the remnants of a baking warzone, and Gary just watches Little's Cato's feet swing back and forth as he stares intensely at the cookies baking. Gary knows how much fun the kid is having, and he's having an amazing time, too, but he knows that they need to talk about a few things.

"Hey, Spidercat?" The kid turns immediately, a genuine smile on his face for one of the first times in a long while. "We gotta talk about some things, buddy."

The Ventrexian immediately deflates, his smile falling as he drops his head down to stare at his lap. Geez, Gary does not want to do this, but he has to for the kid's sake.

"I'm not happy that you ran away. At all. You never should've done that," Gary says sternly.

Little Cato's head only sinks further down into his chest, curling up into himself. "I know."

"Do you really know that? Because if you did, you wouldn't have run away. And you joined a group of bounty hunters? That was the first thing you decided to do? You could have gotten killed!"

Gary knows he's yelling slightly, but the more he thinks about it, the more angry he feels. 

"How do you think I would have felt if I had woken up just to go looking for you only to find you hurt or worse?" Gary's voice cracks, but he keeps on going. "Don't you ever think of scaring me like that again, okay?"

Gary watches as a few tears slide off of the boy's cheeks. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't wanna make you mad."

"Well, I am mad. I mean, not really mad. Okay I am mad, but I'm more just–upset," Gary says, stumbling on his words. "I need you to start coming to me when you have a problem, not run away from everything. I'm here for you, kiddo. Always will be."

"But what if—?"

"Nope, nuh-uh. Come to me. For everything. Especially when you're feeling down. I've messed up, but I'm not gonna let you down anymore," Gary promises. "I'm all in, and I should have been before. You're my kid, so I'd like to know if my boy needs help with something."

Little Cato finally looks up at Gary, tears welling up in his eyes, and he launches himself at Gary. The kid clings onto his shirt, and Gary immediately wraps his arms around his son, holding him close and comforting him.

"I've got you, buddy. I've got you," he soothes, "I always will."

"I promise not to run away again," Little Cato cries, muffled by Gary's chest.

Gary presses a quick kiss to the top of the boy's head. "I know you won't."

The kid takes a few more moments to calm himself, then he pulls away from Gary to wipe away his tears. They continue to hold each other in a loose hug, and Little Cato tilts his head upwards and smiles at Gary. And damn does his heart melt. 

"You know, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have made you cookies after you ran away. Not exactly a punishment, is it," Gary says. 

"It's too late, you're not taking that cookie away from me," Little Cato threatens, a wide smile on his face. "Can we do this again?"

"Oh, definitely! This could be a little family tradition of ours, if you want. My dad would have loved you," the blond says, ruffling his kid's hair.

"You think so?"

"How could he not when he has the coolest grandson in the universe?" Gary brags, a fond look in his eyes.

"Thanks, Dad," Little Cato laughs, bright and warm. "Oh my god, are you crying?"

Gary immediately tries to wipe away the tears and cover it up, saying, "No, no, I've just got flour in my eyes!"

Little Cato hugs him again, smiling knowingly as Gary tries and fails to not cry over how he literally has the best kid ever. 

"Are the cookies almost done? Because I'm hungryyyy," the kid whines, wiggling around impatiently.

"Hi hungry, I'm dad."

Little Cato snorts, laughing so hard that he falls over onto the table, clutching onto his stomach. Gary can't help but lose it over how hard the kid is laughing, and he quickly dissolves into a pile of laughter with his son. 

"Oh my god, that was so lame!" Little Cato wheezes, still giggling hysterically.

"I'm legally allowed to say dad jokes now, and they are not lame! They are very cool! You kids just don't know good comedy," Gary jokes, smiling even more as Little Cato laughs and laughs. 

Gary leaves the kid to reclaim his sanity as he takes the cookies out of the oven to put the next few batches in, putting on a couple of songs while he's at it. He hasn't baked since before his dad died because it just reminded him of how much he missed him, but doing this with Little Cato? Best idea he's ever had, well, behind adopting the kid. 

As Gary stands back for a moment to watch Little Cato move along to Dancing Queen, chocolate covering his face and hands because that kid did not hold back on putting those chips in that monster cookie, he can't help it when his heart just feels complete with his boy in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Y'ALL I AM LITERALLY THRIVING I'M FUCKING LOSING IT HOLY SHIT THIS SHOW IS JUST. AAAAAAA
> 
> I will never recover from this shit. never. Olan really out here blessing us with the found family, huh?
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr about this


End file.
